'Mayan Apocalypse' One Week Away

Below:

Next story in Space

Humanity has just one week left to get its affairs in order, if
you believe the doomsayers.

The world will come to an end next Friday (Dec. 21), according to
one interpretation of the Mayan calendar that has found a number
of believers online. Many different apocalyptic scenarios are
envisioned, from a
cataclysmic asteroid strike to a monster solar storm.

The source of the anxiety is the
Mayan Long Count calendar, whose 13th bak'tun (or 144,000-day
cycle) wraps up on Dec. 21. To the ancient Maya, this milestone
would have marked the end of a cycle of creation — a fact
doomsayers have seized on to bolster their dire predictions.

But there's no evidence that the ancient Maya themselves would be
on board with this apocalyptic interpretation, say experts in
Mayan history. Rather, they likely would have celebrated the
event and simply rolled the calendar over to a new bak'tun.

Scientists agree that we have nothing in particular to fear on
Dec. 21. No gigantic asteroids or mysterious rogue planets are on
a collision course with Earth, they say, and there's no reason to
think a massive, civilization-threatening solar storm is in the
offing, either.

Indeed, the sun has been fairly quiet during its current 11-year
activity cycle, which is known as Solar Cycle 24. And Earth has a
history of weathering whatever the sun, or anything else, throws
at it.

"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than four
billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no
threat associated with 2012," NASA researchers write in an
apocalypse-debunking FAQ.

But that's not to say Dec. 21 is an insignificant date. It's one
of the year's two solstices, marking the start of winter in the
Northern Hemisphere and the onset of summer in the South. (The
other solstice occurs in June.)

So while some people are hunkering down in bunkers awaiting the
end, others will be celebrating the changing of the seasons on
our ancient and abiding Earth.